Positioning Meta Data

What is the position of meta data relative to the scope of data architecture? Readers have challenged the absence of meta data from the definition of data architecture as I have defined and extended data architecture in the last several months. Others have suggested meta data should be included as a part of data management.

I defined data architecture as an orderly arrangement of parts to organize, store, access and move data. Data management describes the processes needed to manage the parts of the data architecture. Graphically, I think of data architecture as resting on a backplane of data management. I am indebted to my colleague Mike Green for creation of the data management framework shown in Figure 1.